1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to automated and autonomous monitoring systems. More specifically, the invention is an automated and autonomous monitoring system that i) performs data collection and analysis thereof at various data collection nodes onboard each vehicle in a fleet, ii) passes analysis results up to an onboard vehicle terminal and then on to a fleet-wide terminal for further analysis processing, and iii) notifies interested parties of problems with individual vehicles and fleet-wide problems (e.g., related to vehicle usage, maintenance, performance, damage or degradation) indicated by the analysis results.
2. Description of the Related Art
Monitoring the performance of mechanical or structural systems is increasingly being accomplished with automated systems that collect performance data and present same to a user for analysis. The collected performance data can be related to system usage, maintenance, damage or degradation. Data collection typically requires specifically-designed data sensing and collecting hardware that must be integrated into the particular system being monitored. As a result, there is a great deal of time and expense associated with such application specific designs. Data presentation can come in the form of “data versus time” or “data versus other key parameter variation” plots, alarm notifications when a particular monitored sub-system's upper or lower threshold is reached, and/or large blocks of raw sensor data which must be collected, stored and analyzed at some later time. However, the value of such presentation is limited. While notification alarms present a form of real-time data analysis, the alarm generally relates to an individual sub-system's performance without considering how this might be indicative of a broader system problem. On the other hand, if data is presented in the form of blocks of data or plots of data, analysis thereof must take place “off line” at some point later in time. Furthermore, such analysis is performed manually, thereby requiring personnel to do so.
The above-described problems associated with current performance monitoring systems are further exacerbated when the performance of a number of similar systems is to be monitored. For example, it would be desirable to monitor fleets of vehicles (e.g., aircrafts, ground vehicles, underwater vehicles, etc.) that utilize identical or similar sub-systems in order to determine if there is a fleet-wide problem. However, using current technology, data from individual vehicles in the fleet would have to be collected and then analyzed for problematic trends. Such analysis may be too little or too late to prevent a catastrophic system failure.